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Image Credit: Screenshot from Vimeo

The Super Bowl, with an audience of 111.5 million people, tends to be a place where the definition of “American” is equally invoked and contested. Not only do the hard hits and pick-sixes play out America’s strength, but also the commercials display American ingenuity and self-expression. After all, what could be more American than Bob Dylan in a Chrysler commercial, a cowboy driving a Chevy Silverado, a multilingual performance of “America the Beautiful” over a bottle of coke? At this year’s Super Bowl, only a personal injury attorney ad could top these greats. The epic spectacle of Jamie Casino’s advertisement for his Savannah-based Casino Law Group not only invokes an All-American superhero origin myths but also adheres remarkably well to the personal injury attorney ad genre. Considering all the ad’s buzz, what makes this one so great? What makes attorney ads so arresting?

For one, it uses visual and verbal rhetorics of the action flick to portray Jamie Casino as a superhero fighting the villains:

H/T: Deadspin

There’s so much about this commercial that belongs to the Hollywood revenge flick: the “based on a true story” disclosure, the horrific tragedy of his brother’s death, the injustice of the crooked police, and the graveside scenes. The throbbing metal beat comes in at the turning point: “At some point, a man must ask why God created him.” The transition from clean-shaven lawyer to bearded badass who wields the sledgehammer labeled for his brother “Michael” against a shadowy, fiery background, slamming apart the gravestone, plays out in the lyrics as well as the visuals: “When you fall down on your knees / Beg for mercy: ‘mister, please—’ / The time has come to make things right / There ain’t no judge for pleadin’ to / We done convicted you / The Devil gets your soul tonight.” This ad perfectly fits its Super Bowl time slot: it’s as over-the-top as Joe Namath’s fur coat, as high drama as the safety the Seahawks scored in the game’s first play, and focuses on an all-American warrior who “speak[s] for innocent victims who cannot speak for themselves.”

Image Credit: Screenshot from Vimeo

I wasn’t surprised to learn from interviews with Casino himself and the commercial’s editor that they intentionally used a cinematic narrative style to draw the audience in. As Stephen Withers, the commercial’s editor put it:

He had a pretty solid idea of what he wanted. He used his storyboards to set up the edits the way he wanted. It was really like an ‘80s action movie, Terminator kind of feel when he brought it in, and he wanted to get away from that. Plus, we had to reconcile this gunslinger image from his previous ads with this family man idea.

Watching his previous commercial, it’s clear that the sledgehammer/song are used to help construct that continuity. The narrative also works for his commercial purposes: to engage his local audiences to trust him for legal services. If you want your attorney to be as a justice-seeking warrior, this commercial locates those traits within familiar action-flick imagery. Taking on the personae of the “gunslinger” and the vigilante makes for good drama: but how is this credible in a lawyer?

Image Credit: Screenshot from Vimeo

There’s a reason the commercial is so over-the-top: it seems to be part of the attorney ad genre, especially as covered by blogs like Above the Law. Breaking Bad’s sleazy lawyer Sal Goodman has similarly dramatic commercials, featuring the character in front of a Constitution-filled background invoking the tagline “Better Call Saul!”:

Locally here in Austin, we have several equally colorful attorneys who seem to take the city’s unofficial “Keep It Weird” logo as part of their ethos. One such attorney, David Komie of Komie & Morrow, has billboards around Austin that celebrate the fact that he is “the attorney that rocks.”

Image Credit: Austin Chronicle

His dreadlocked visage and leather jacket here perform a rock-and-roll image to appeal to the residents of the Live Music Capital of the World; even though the banner on his firm’s website puts him in a more traditional blue button-up, his biography mentions the name of his band. As Austin sketch comedy group Hustle Show puts it,

At least as far as the ads are concerned, David Komie combines two fun archetypes: the “Better call Saul!”-style billboard lawyer, who’s just trying to make his name and number more memorable than the next guy, and the middle-aged Austin rocker dude who has a square day job but, because it's Austin, wants to let you know that after he punches that clock, things are going get a little crazy.

Another local attorney, Adam Reposa, uses a more traditionally Texan image for his commercials:

The self-proclaimed DWI Badass here relies on a fabulous biker mustache, black cowboy hat, and gruff demeanor to convey that not only is he a lawyer, but one to be feared when you try and stop Americans from enjoying their freedoms. Here, he drives a monstrously large truck and repeatedly slams it into the smaller economy car, to emblematize his approach to the legal system. It’s not a little scary and, as my attorney friend informed me, against the rules of the State Bar of Texas to advertise in such an undignified fashion.  (Perhaps it's no accident that Reposa has been held in contempt of court for lewd handgestures.)

Image Credit: Vice Magazine

Why are videos/images like these so prevalent within the genre?  Perhaps it’s just to attract Hollywood deals and reality show producers.  But not all of these characters actually become entertainment characters. In part, these videos get made because they draw attention, they work. There seems to me to be a classist angle to this: if you’re not familiar with the legal system or without financial means, you’re likely to find out about attorneys through popular media. You might be suspicious of a lawyer with “decorum,” because you want an attorney who can identify with your experiences and needs. If you have access to money or are of a certain class, you want a “tasteful” lawyer, the kind you might find in a biglaw firm who doesn’t need to advertise for business. If you find yourself mocking Jamie Casino, perhaps it’s a sign you don’t actually need legal representation. If you have been injured by your interactions with a corporate entity, you probably do want a legal superhero to save you.

In that case: rock on, David Komie. Rock on.